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Future Management of Cambridge’s Parks and Green Spaces
Residents of Garlic Row Enjoying Stourbridge Common Cambridge City Council held a Community Services Scrutiny Committee on the 12th of March 2009. One of the items on the agenda was a draft Parks and Open Spaces Strategy for the City. I spoke on this item to comment on the fact that no specific mention of […]
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Cambridge City Council Parks and Open Spaces Strategy Omits Trees
Cambridge City Council held a Community Services Scrutiny Committee on the 12th of March 2009. I used the opportunity for members of the public to speak at council meetings to ask why the draft Parks and Open Spaces Strategy being put to the committee didn’t mention the trees on the parks and open spaces. I […]
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More Than 665 Trees Felled In Cambridge Last Year
At Cambridge City Council’s Full Council meeting on February 26th 2009 Labour opposition Councillor Lucy Walker received an answer to a written question in which she had asked: Where and how may trees have been felled in the city during the last year, and where are more planned to be felled? I do not think […]
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Questions to the Cambridge City Council Executive – February 2009
At full Cambridge City Council meetings councillors are able to ask questions to executive councillors; these have to be submitted in writing the day before the meeting. A ballot is held to determine the order of questions and as many as can be dealt with in thirty minutes are answered. Any questions remaining beyond that […]
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Friends of Midsummer Common 2009 AGM
On Tuesday the 24th of February 2009 I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Friends of Midsummer Common. About eighty people were present, including city councillors Bick and Blair. A number of council officers attended: Debbie Kaye, Cambridge City Council’s Active Communities Manager, Green Space Officer Sarah Tovell and Green Space Manager Alistair Wilson. […]
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Cambridge City Council 2008/9 Budget Scrutiny
Cambridge City Council’s budgets were yet again under scrutiny at a meeting at the guildhall this evening (13th February 2009). The meeting was scheduled to enable scrutiny of the opposition budget presented by the Labour group, but because of the significant changes in the Liberal executive’s budget made in January the scope of the meeting […]
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Budget Cuts Without Service Cuts – Too Good to be True?
I observed a meeting of Cambridge City Council’s executive on the 29th of January 2009 at which a report on proposed savings required to balance the 2008/9 budget in light of strains (which I have detailed in a separate article) was presented. Council Leader, Ian Nimmo-Smith described the situation as a “perfect storm”, factors contributing […]
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More Questions on the Cambridge Folk Festival Ticket Money
Following from my my response to the news that Cambridge City Council is owed £618,000 by SecureTicket UK Ltd., the company it engaged to sell Folk Festival tickets online and the questions which I asked about this money on the 8th of January, another opportunity to ask questions arose last week. At Cambridge City Council’s […]
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Trees to be Felled on Midsummer Common
Barry Higgs and Dick Baxter of the Friends of Midsummer Common attended the West Central Area committee on the 8th of January 2009, they reported that on the day before they had been shown around the common by a City Council Officer who identified a number of trees to be felled. They asked if there […]
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Policing West and Central Cambridge – January 2009
I attended Cambridge City Council’s West Central Area Committee on the 8th of January 2009. One of the main items on the agenda was “Safer Neighborhoods”, the meeting’s chair was almost tripped up by the cryptic title and had to ask the committee manager what the policing item was called saying: “Is it Safer Communities?”. […]